There have been many machines known in the art for the manufacture and wrapping of ice cream sandwiches, the basic features of which are well understood by those of ordinary skill in the art. Examples of such prior art devices include those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,828,660 to Mueller et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,834,119 to Armitt et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,628,664 to Price et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,493,957 to Kennedy et al., which are incorporated herein by reference.
As shown in these patents and as is well known in the art, an ice-cream sandwich filling apparatus typically comprises an apparatus frame to which a series of stations are affixed in a cantilevered fashion. The moving components of the apparatus are typically controlled by a numerical or computer controller through one or more drive mechanisms. The first station is typically the wafer filling station, in which a top and bottom wafer are provided by wafer feeders and an ice-cream extruder discharges ice cream between the wafers. The completed sandwich is then delivered, often via an indexing wheel or similar device, to a conveyor assembly, also affixed to the apparatus frame, which carries the sandwich toward a wrapping station.
When the sandwich arrives at the wrapping station, it first enters at the bottom of a vertical elevator, where a cut sheet of wrapping paper, provided by primary and secondary paper rollers and cut by a rotary knife between the two rollers, is situated atop the sandwich. The paper rollers are typically biased downward through the use of mechanical compression springs to provide friction between the roller and the supplied paper, thereby reducing or preventing slippage. The operation of the paper rollers and rotary knife and the arrangement of the cut sheet atop the sandwich is known in the prior art, and typically all of these parts have been commonly driven. The elevator then carries the sandwich and cut sheet upwards through the wrapping assembly, where a pusher mechanism cooperates with side and bottom tucking devices both to fold the paper about the sandwich and to push the wrapped sandwich toward an exit tray. The operation of these tuckers is also known in the art. The exit tray in turn includes one or more heated platens, which act to heat seal the bottom overlaps of the cut sheet of wrapping paper to each other, providing a secure wrap.
Despite the periodic improvements reflected in the above-referenced patents, there remain several drawbacks in ice cream sandwich-making machines known in the art, particularly with respect to the single motor drivetrain apparatus. For example, current ice cream sandwich making machines use a combination of AC motor and gearbox to drive the components of the machine through a series of belts, chains, cams, gearboxes and shafts. This type of drive arrangement is subject to mechanical failure and continuous maintenance. Further, the components of this type of mechanical drive take up substantially more internal space within the machine, congest, interfere, and make difficult the maintenance, repair, and/or replacements of parts or components of the ice cream sandwich making apparatus.
In addition, the relative motions and timing of components and stations are normally fixed in current machines, unless the machine is manually adjusted or an existing mechanical setting is changed—typically requiring substantial down time for the machine. Even further, many complex processes, for example motions, phasing and/or timing of components and stations are not achievable with this type of conventional drive arrangement due to limitations of mechanical factors. Therefore, there is a need for an apparatus to provide the same consistency of manufacturing while providing additional adjustments for throughput and maintenance.